


Setting Fire to the Sky

by Ninjaninaiii



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Airplanes, Alternate Universe - Flight Attendants, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asexual Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Kid Fic, M/M, Madeleine Era, Queerplatonic Relationships, Touch-Starved, but based in the 80s ish so it's not said that that's what they are, it's a romcom, javert is an air steward, the long and the short is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 14:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9185777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninjaninaiii/pseuds/Ninjaninaiii
Summary: Javert is an flight attendant, Valjean is a man with a fear of flying.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had delays on a flight and I just. Wanted Javert in a scarf. 
> 
> There was talk of QP Valvert on tumblr, so I ran with it.

-Pre-flight Meditations-

Javert was not a man known for his smile, but as his job literally demanded it from him, he had a thin, customer-only smile prepared: dead-eyed and without humour. It underlined his “welcome” with a succinct and silent “don’t fuck with me or my stewards,” leaving a nice trace of “you’re in my plane, now.”

-Boarding-

Javert always felt part of himself die when he spotted the infamous long-haul baby. Face blotchy and already screaming, its parents would be spending the short walk to their seats absorbing looks of dread with bent heads and soulful-eyed apologies. 

In-between welcoming the other passengers, Javert would track the parents to their seats with his eyes, hoping to any God listening to please, please spare him from the worst of its screams. It was for this reason that Javert would occasionally miss making eye-contact with one of the passengers as they boarded, his quick glance at the baby mistiming his further interactions.

Jarred out of time, he missed meeting the eye of an older man, holding the hand of a young child. Six, perhaps, young enough that Javert could hope that they would not cause too much trouble. He sent a belated “welcome,” their way, in the hopes that the old man would not feel slighted by his inattention.

Though the man did not seem to hear him, the young child, a girl, turned back and, beaming, waved at him. As protocol demanded, he waved back, before turning his attentions back to the next family.

“Is that man the Captain?”

Javert glanced up to see that the girl and her guardian were sat directly in front of Javert, in the first-class cabin. Javert’s surprise did not make itself visible, but to his eye, the pair did not seem like the typical first-class ticket carrier. Though, he supposed, one did not have to be wearing a tailor-made suit to afford one. 

“No, darling, he’s a steward.”

“Steward? What’s that?”

“They take care of the people on the plane, while the Captain flies it.”

“Oh. Is he the leader?”

“I don’t know, darling.”

“I like his scarf.”

Javert did not hear the rest of the pair’s conversation, refocusing on the fact that a third infant had just passed with its already exhausted-looking parents. 

Three infants. The sound no longer kept Javert affected Javert, but it would make the other passengers grouchy, which, in turn, would affect how they treated him. Javert withheld his sigh, but something told him that this would be a long trip.

-

“Seatbelts, please, seatbelts, Sir, can I see your seatbelt, thank you, seatbelts, seatbelts… Ma’am, if you could stow the tray, thank you… seatbelts, seatbelts…” The phrase echoed its way through the plane as his stewards tracked the plane’s length, their voices still fresh and chipper. 

“Sir,” Javert said, leaning closer, “Sir…” Javert’s jaw clenched in frustration. The plane was still parked and already the man was asleep, eye-mask on and bent almost double, white hair obscuring his face. 

Javert glanced at the child, who was ogling him with big, brown eyes. The man had his coat folded in his lap, hiding the view of his seatbelt. “Excuse me, miss, could you move his coat, so I can check that he has secured his seatbelt?”

The girl nodded, apparently eager to please, before turning to the man and carefully pulling at the coat so as to not disturb the sleeper. It took a few moments, the girl too careful for Javert’s liking, but eventually they were rewarded with the sight of a fastened seatbelt, and Javert was satisfied.

“Thank you,” he said, taking out his customer-service smile, despite its known child-scaring abilities. 

“You’re welcome,” the girl said, smile no dimmer than before. “Javert,” she added, eyes dropping to his nameplate. Javert nodded. Then, sensing her budding curiosity, went to check the other passengers lest he be caught up in a game of twenty questions.

-Safety measures-

Javert had hoped that with seniority would come freedom from the torturous safety demonstration. Hundreds of eyes watching, laughing as he demonstrated how to survive, not listening to him, many not removing their earphones, a good majority not looking up from their phones… No such luck.

He fit the life vest over his head, one hand indicating how to pull to inflate it, then how to blow it up. Thankfully, today’s demonstration had him in first class, where only a few seats were filled; the old man and child in one corner, a few businessmen dotted around the rest. The old man was still asleep, the businessmen already typing away on keyboards. Only the girl was paying attention, nodding keenly after he pulled on this strap or that. 

“Please attach your own mask before assisting anyone else,” the instructional voiceover said, the animated mother in the video behind Javert strapping her own breathing mask on before helping her child, who then did the same for her doll. 

The little brown girl glanced up at her old man, before turning back in on herself, full of conviction. Perhaps she was telling herself that she would have to be independant during a crisis, Javert thought. The fondness of the thought was quite unlike Javert. He banished the rose-tinted delusion of a barely-formed child being able to work the mask and instead replaced it with the reality: a girl, slumped in her seat after being concussed from the turbulent crash, the old man unconscious and unable to help. 

They both die, as does the rest of the plane’s passengers, and their charred remains are never uncovered, sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic. This did not make Javert feel as convinced as it usually did. 

-Hour One-

The girl had been playing on her portable game console since lift-off. Javert, having little to do but watch her play, had eventually seen a spike in curiosity he had not previously held for children’s video games. He had stood from his post, walked past, out of the first class area and through to the economy seats, as if on a mission. 

He passed hands waving for his attention, holding a finger up as if he was actually going to return to them. Then, once he had reached the end of the plane, he grabbed a stack of paper cups. He knew, for a fact, that his end had not run out of paper cups, but he needed an excuse. So, back he went, through economy, economy plus, business, until he got to first. Then, he slowed, almost stopping as he passed the girl.

_ Nintendogs _ , or something of that ilk. The girl was happily tapping at an animated dog, the occasional heart springing from the dog to show its affection. Fitting, he thought, before going to store his not-needed cups in already full cupboards.

-Hour Two-

The girl had been shooting Javert furtive glances for the last half hour, her dogs obviously not holding her attention as they had before. Javert, not wanting to sacrifice the rest of his trip to this girl’s whims, denied meeting her eye, focusing entirely on not moving, and seeming very busy doing nothing. After another half hour of this, the girl went back to playing with her dogs, though not half as enthusiastically as before.

-Hour Three-

Javert was woken by a pull at his sleeve. He couldn’t believe he had nodded off, but he must have done, for there the girl was, at Javert’s eye-level.

“Yes?” he asked, brusque, before managing to tack on a smile for effect.

“Papa,” the girl said, and for one intense second, Javert thought the girl was referring to him. “I think Papa’s ill.”

Javert blinked, rapidly, brain working hard to connect the girl’s words to her meaning. She was pulling at his sleeves again and Javert rose, following the girl to her seat, where the man, apparently the girl’s father, was attempting to make himself seem small and unsuspicious. Which, on an airplane, could not have looked more suspicious. 

“Sir, are you okay?”

The man stopped squirming. He was a big man, dark skinned, just the right type Javert’s superiors would love to stop and search.

“Fine, thank you.”

“Your daughter has raised concern as to your health.”

A flinch, the man turning to his daughter… but aborting the movement before Javert could get a good look at his face. “I’m fine, Cosette, truly.”

“But Papa,” the girl said, “You are all sweaty and nervous, just like Mama was when she was ill.”

This brought the man’s attention swinging up, eyes wide, guilty— “Oh Cosette,” he said, “No, darling, I am merely airsick, I am not as sick as your mother was.”

Cancer or some such had taken this man’s wife, then. Javert, midway through piecing the puzzle together, found himself watching the man, finding him familiar. Perhaps a frequent flier? 

His services evidently not needed, Javert smiled at the girl, Cosette, then nodded at the father. “If you do need water or medical attention, please don’t hesitate to contact either myself or another member of the crew.”  A quick smile, a quick turn, a quick retreat back to his post, where he was hailed by the blinking light of another passenger.

“Whiskey,” the businessman said, barely glancing up. Javert nodded and went to pretend to be busy.

-1989.1-

When Javert had been a young steward, he had had a home in Hong Kong, the place of his mother’s birth. A flat, dingy, never more than a bed and a fridge for him, but a home all the same. It meant that he took more long-haul flights to Asia and, in the late 80s, this meant he saw an influx of young businessmen and tourists pass through his services. 

One such man was an entrepreneur by the name of Mr. Madeleine, founder of a technology start-up that had revolutionised the computer market in Asia. Javert did not know this when he first met the man.

-Hour Four-

The girl was on her fourth orange juice, and Javert was becoming concerned for her. The amount of sugar, for one, would surely prevent her falling asleep. The amount of liquids was another. 

Cosette had asked for her first orange juice when she had noticed Javert bringing the suit his whiskey, and had mimicked the man’s hand movements, hailing Javert with a wave of the hand.

“Yes?” Javert asked, “What can I get for you.”

Cosette glanced at her Papa (once again asleep, or mimicking it,) before leaning closer to Javert. “Could I please have an orange juice?”

“Of course. Anything else for you? A snack?”

“No, thank you, just the orange juice please.”

The girl certainly had manners, which endeared her to Javert. It was not often that he was shown common courtesy, especially by children. When he returned with her juice, she thanked him again, and began sipping at it with a concentration Javert admired. The girl wanted her juice, and so she drank it. Simple.

Almost as soon as she had finished the glass, her hand came up again to hail him. “Could I  please get another orange juice please?”

Javert smiled, picked up her empty glass and went to refill it. Cosette drank with the same determination, and hailed him again. 

When he collected her fourth glass and she did not instantly order a fifth, Javert untensed. “Is this your first trip on an airplane?” he asked, wanting to know whether the girl would be too terrified to use the toilet on her own.

“Yup!” the girl nodded, “My first trip with Papa! We’re moving to Hong Kong!” Javert noticed the man flinch. Again, not terribly consoling.

“Really. Do you know whereabouts?” 

“San Po Kong!” Cosette said, her voice making the name a mantra. She had obviously had to repeat it to remember it. 

“Really,” Javert said, “I used to live near there. Do you know where Kowloon City is?” 

Cosette shook her head but, obviously interested, Javert took a pen and napkin from his pocket and drew a crude map. A mountainous lump with a flat bottom to start. “This is San Po Kong.” To the left, a misshapen oblong. “This is Kowloon city.” Below the two, another blob, this time with a long oblong jutting out into a sea of marked out area. “This is where the old airport, Kai Tak used to be. See, this is what’s called the bay; it used to be the runway. When I was young, the planes used to fly straight down, through the city, like they were going to crash into the buildings.” 

Javert could sense Cosette’s father watching him, now, but for some reason, refused to look back. It almost felt like payback.  _ You pretend to sleep during take-off, I’ll pretend not to notice you. _

“I used to live here,” Javert said, pointing at a spot in the middle of the Kowloon Bay blob. 

“Where the planes would land?”

“That’s right. At night, you could barely sleep for the sound.”

“They enforced a night curfew though.” This time, Javert looked up at the father, whose tone of voice obviously meant he was talking to his daughter. “It meant the planes couldn’t take off or land between midnight and 6.”

“You lived there too?” Javert asked, curious. If so, that might explain the familiarity, a businessman when Javert was a young steward.

“Passed through once or twice,” the man said with a small smile, though still avoiding Javert’s eye. Mystery solved, then. Javert turned back to Cosette, whose expression was one of consternation. Evidently noticing, her father touched her arm. “What troubles you, Cosette?”

Cosette took a moment to frown, then turned to her Papa. “I want to know more about you and Mr. Javert’s time as babies,” she said, “But I also really, really need to go to the toilet.”

Javert felt himself do something akin to grin— which he stemmed, as quickly as it had happened. “The toilets are that way, miss.”

“Would you like me to go with you?” The father asked, but Cosette just shook her head. 

“I am going to the toilet,” Cosette told Javert, “So I’m taking my seatbelt off.”

Javert nodded, and stood back. Both men watched as the girl made her way, slowly, down the aisle, extremely cautious despite the lack of turbulence, the plane rocking less than a train or tube might. Javert was first to turn back, and caught his first real glimpse of Cosette’s father.

-1989.2-

Javert had been watching the man for the last five hours of the eight hour flight. The man had seemed nervous about boarding, which had been what first caught Javert’s attention. Then, once Javert had noticed him, he had been developing what could only be described as attraction.

It was an empty flight. New Year’s Eve in the air: most planned to take the plane either before or after, so as to not spend the actual turning of the year in a plane. The New Year came at about hour four, the cabin crew handing the passengers a flute of free champagne. Most of the passengers were well on their way to shitfaced by that point, rowdy from whiskey, vodka, anything that was being passed around, but not the queasy man at the back, who had kept himself to himself, a handkerchief pressed to his face. 

During take-off, the man had been clutching the armrests like they were keeping him from falling and, though Javert could not see the man’s face, sat behind him as he was, Javert could tell that the man was clenching his eyes closed. Now, he was wringing his hands, digging his nails into the skin of his hands.

“Are you feeling okay, Sir?” Javert knelt by the man, keeping his voice non-threatening.

The man’s attention flicked to Javert, panic very obvious in his eyes. “What’s your name?” Javert asked.

After a pause, Javert heard a quiet “Jean.”

“Jean, good. I’m Javert.” 

Jean nodded, eyes not leaving Javert now that he’d latched on to him.

“Can I get you a glass of water, Jean?” Jean shook his head. Javert’s face must have done something, because Jean reacted to it, looking guilty. 

“It’s the smoke,” Jean said, moving the handkerchief from his mouth while he spoke. “The smell of it… I am not used to it, and it’s quite overwhelming.”

Javert smiled. “You’re not the only one. They’ve just banned smoking on flights less than two hours long… though I don’t know how long it’ll take for flights like these.”

“Nicotine withdrawals, I’d bet,” Jean said, with slight less panic in his voice. Apparently he thought that too, because the split second later, the panic was back. 

“What’re you going to Hong Kong for, Jean?”

“Business.” Jean looked pained by the word.

“You don’t look like a businessman,” Javert said. The plane was full of businessmen, and even here they knew everything was a matter of appearances. They were all in a suit and tie (or, what remained of it after drunken antics in bathrooms,)  because they knew that that was what would make or break a business deal if they were to meet a contact in the plane.

Jean’s smile had humour in it, though even Javert could tell there was also misgiving. “Thanks,” he said, sarcastic.

Javert showed his palms, shrugging. “You’re the first businessman I’ve met wearing a t-shirt and comfortable trousers.”

“I wanted to be comfortable for my first flight,” Jean said, defensive.

“Your first ever?”

“I thought that might be evident by my…” Jean parodied himself with an expression of exaggerated pain. Javert bit back a smile.

“I’ve known plenty of men who still panic, having flown all their lives.”

“That certainly makes me feel more at ease.” Jean finally closed his eyes and leant back in his seat, calmer, if not relaxed. 

“Let me get you some water, Jean.” Javert sat back on his haunches, then moved to stand— only to be held, at the last moment, by a grip on his wrist. Jean’s eyes were open again, expression terrified and quavering despite his steady hold. 

“Okay,” Javert calmed, “...Not yet.” Javert breathed, deep, hoping Jean might mimic him. “So, what sort of businessman is not used to the smell of smoke?”

“It sounds like the beginning of a joke when you say it like that.” Jean took the time to breathe before continuing, eyes once again closed. “The kind that has not always been a businessman.”

“Are you intending on leaving me without a clue what you’re talking about?”

Jean did not open his eyes, but his smile was soft and teasing.

“So, a businessman without a suit or a tolerance to cigarettes. What else do you abstain from, ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’?”

“As a matter of fact,” Jean said, lip pulling into a wider smile.

Javert reeled to have his joke answered to seriously, before conjuring what sort of reaction that might look like to the grinning Jean. “So we have something in common,” Javert said hastily, before realising what a stupid idea it was to open his damned mouth. 

Javert felt something like trepidation flare inside of him as Jean opened his eyes to watch him, his gaze inquisitive, wondering if Javert was mocking him. Javert experienced, a rare nervous clench of his chest. “Where are you planning on staying during your trip?” he asked, as if this was a perfectly normal run-on question. For some of the girls, it was. But for Javert… this kind of behaviour was completely unprecedented. 

“Ah.” Jean smiled. “You’ve caught me.” 

This was not an expected answer, and Javert frowned. “Caught you?”

“I left home in a bit of a hurry. Took the first flight I could with the money I had in my pocket…” Jean shrugged. “And here I am.”

“You… what?” Javert, the meticulous planner, who did not step foot out of his door without having formed a plan of the day to the minute, felt his heart leap at just the suggestion of such laxity. The man was admitting to be penniless, homeless, who knew what-else-less and the prospect had been offered to Javert as if a menial incidence.

“I thought I might start afresh,” Jean said, “Find a hotel the first few nights, find some work, then start to rent somewhere.”

“Can you speak Chinese?” Jean shook his head. “You can’t speak Chinese, you have no money, and you’re going to attempt to find work?” Jean nodded. 

“If you happen to know any good hotels,” Jean said, “That would be much obliged.”

Javert stood, abruptly. He held up one finger to silence Jean’s protestations and went round the corner to the back, where the steward’s supplies waited. He filled a cup from a bottle of water, picked up a couple of napkins and returned, barely a minute passing. Once again, he knelt by Jean’s side, placing the cup on his tray.

“If I’m keeping you from your job,” Jean said, humour gone from his voice. “Please don’t worry about me. You’ve brought me water, you need not feel like you must keep me company too.”

Javert ignored him, took a pen from his pocket and placed a napkin on the tray. Before he could lose his nerve, he wrote an address in clear, block capitals. “I have a flat near the airport. I have things to attend to once the plane lands, but if you wait at a restaurant, I should be here by seven PM.” 

Javert did not dare look up at Jean, who remained silent. “I barely use it,” he continued, “But I keep it since I usually do this journey, to Hong Kong, a lot.” Still, silence, and Javert felt himself crumble, slightly, on the inside. Was this not how the others did this? He was unused to ‘picking’ anyone up, let alone a passenger, or a man like Jean, who had shown no interest in Javert at all. “But if you would like to use it, for however long, until you are able to find a suitable place to rent…” Javert stood. “Seven.”

-Hour Five-

“—Jean,” Javert realised. The look on Jean’s face told him he had known exactly who Javert was since the moment he’d stepped into the plane. 

“It’s nice to see you again, Javert,” Jean said, now not hiding his face. The nervousness, the sweating, the eyemask… 

“Yes,” Javert said, ramrod straight and back to his chilly, impersonal self. “You too.”

“It’s been a while.” Jean held out his hand, which Javert shook, as if they were old business partners. 

“You have a daughter,” Javert said, meaning that time had passed, but knowing how he sounded. 

“Yes, Cosette. Seven in a few months.” So Jean understood it was a time thing, too.

“Her mother…?”

“Fantine. She died when Cosette was too young to distinguish between ‘uncle’ and ‘papa’.”

“Oh,” Javert said simply, remembering Jean’s sister keenly. They had met a few times, in Hong Kong, and Javert knew he had never treated the woman well, his bias against prostitution colouring his interactions with her. “I’m sorry for your loss.” He meant it, now. He considered voicing his apology for his actions, but decided against it. Jean would undoubtedly attempt to rush a forgiveness, and Javert could not bring himself to be forgiven. 

Now that the connection had been made, he thought about Cosette, and saw Fantine about her. Slight, pretty, Indian… but her father must have been light-skinned, for Cosette was not as dark as her Papa or mother.

“We do not know who her father was,” Jean said with a shrug. “There was a man, for a while, who might have been the impregnator, but… We do not know for sure.” 

“So you are her father, now.” 

Jean nodded. “You seem different, Javert. I hope life has treated you well.”

_ Different?  _ Javert showed his palms. “Nothing much has changed for me. But I know you have done well in life.”

Jean laughed, self-conscious and humble, as ever. “I didn’t think you’d remember me enough to follow my life.”

“Did you not?” Javert felt something sink within him, as if the plane were dropping. 

Jean swallowed. “I thought… well, I was under the impression that there were, or might have been, many men— people, like myself. That I might just have been… another man to you...”

Jean’s voice trailed off once he spotted Cosette’s return. “She does not know,” Jean said, hastily, eyes pleading a promise of silence from Javert that he was too rushed to either accept or refuse.

_ Know what?  _ Javert thought, rooted to the spot by Jean’s accusations. 

Cosette fell into her seat and immediately buckled her seatbelt, full of energy. “Papa, have you been to the toilets? Once you flush they go WHOOSH! Does all of it get flushed outside?” 

“No, baby, it all gets flushed into a big tank.” 

“Oh, good, I thought maybe it would all rain down on the people down on the ground like—” she mimicked a plane with one hand, rain with the other. “Nyoom, sploooooooshh...”

Javert walked away from the pair, to the other end of the plane, needing some space to think.

-1989.3-

Javert’s watch ticked to seven minutes past eleven. He was sat at his kitchen table, still in his uniform, bag unpacked beside him. At first, he had simply thought he might as well wait, and do his unpacking later, but then, as an hour passed, he had wanted to seem as if he had only just arrived, so that Jean would not feel as if Javert had been waiting for him. Eventually, Javert had just been too stubborn to change. A part of him had not wanted to leave the table, lest he not hear the knock on the door. 

He decided at eleven that at a quarter past, he would forget Jean, and go to a bar.

He decided at a quarter past that at twenty past, he would get changed, and go to bed. It had been a long day. 

At half past— 

Javert pulled open the door and the smell was immediate. Alcohol, smoke, weed. He barred the entry with his body, casually defensive, not just having second doubts but instantly repelled by the man on his doorstep.

“I should have set an upper limit,” Javert wondered out loud. “After seven  _ does _ usually tend to mean ‘sooner’ rather than ‘later’.” 

Jean noticed his body language and deflated. “I’m sorry. I didn’t dare hope that you might still…”

“Be up?”

“Want me.” Jean said, meeting Javert’s eyes and causing a ridiculous flip in Javert’s stomach. “Here. Want me here,” Jean rephrased.

“But you waited until…” Javert checked his watch, as if he had not been watching it for the last four hours. “Past eleven to check?”

“I went job hunting,” Jean said, apologetic. When Javert did not close the door on him, Jean continued. “At first I got what you’d expect,” he indicated his person, wearing nothing but a t-shirt, jeans and with a small overnight bag, “But I passed a bar and I heard that they’d just found out a guy couldn’t work that night, so they hired me on the spot, on the condition that I started immediately.”

“You got a bar job, and you’re here by eleven?”

“The man whose job I had came back, and threatened to burn the place down if he was not given his job back. So I quit.”

“You quit?” Javert leant against the doorframe, engrossed, forgetting his previous misgivings.

“I felt bad for the man; I did not want to take his job. Plus,” Jean continued, “I had a place that I’d rather be.”

Javert pushed a hand through his hair, still perfectly coiffed despite the trip, thinking  _ unbelievable _ , thinking  _ incredible,  _ thinking, against all better judgement, ‘ _ want’. _

“I’m glad you didn’t change,” Jean said, quieter, taking a step closer as Javert opened the door wider. “I like your uniform.”

Javert allowed himself to be crowded back into the corridor, closing the door behind them. Jean braced one hand against the wall, the other touching Javert’s jaw, his shoulder-bag dropping to the floor. 

“Can I kiss you, Javert?”

-Hour Six-

Javert took his time in economy, knowing what waited behind the curtain. Cowardly, perhaps, but necessary if he wanted to do his job. Two of the three infants had been convinced to sleep, but the third proved an excellent distraction, wailing incessantly despite its mother’s best efforts. He was sent to and fro to collect warm water, a portable crib, anything to help, yet still, his mind had not been washed clean of the troubles that lay in wait.

-1989.4-

The kisses were quick and light, Javert pulling Jean close. Jean, playful, kissed lines up Javert’s smooth jaw, to where his mouth met the man’s clipped sideburns, down his neck until he reached the scarf, which he stroked with one thumb even after his kisses had returned to Javert’s mouth. 

Javert took his hands from Jean and went to remove it, but Jean made a ‘no’ sound, stopping him. “It’s cute,” he breathed in reply to Javert’s confusion. 

“I’ll strangle myself.” 

Jean made another sound, this time indecisive, before allowing Javert to remove the scarf, and to hang it with his coat by the door.

Jean enjoyed the feeling of Javert’s body underneath his hands; he smoothed the overlap of where Javert’s shirt met his trousers just to feel the slim curve of his hips. Javert seemed similarly preoccupied by Jean’s shoulders, fingers pressing into the skin, short nails scratching slightly. Jean pulled back a little, to breathe. His hands still rested on Javert’s hips, desperate to untuck his shirt to feel the skin underneath. “Not sex,” Jean said, phrased as a statement needing confirmation.

“Not sex,” Javert agreed, sounding thankful. “Maybe sometime.”

“But you’re comfortable with this?” 

“I would tell you if I wasn’t,” Javert said, without question, and so Jean continued. He tugged at Javert’s shirt, fingers touching Javert’s skin, tentative, giving the man enough time to push away.

Javert did not, eyes closing and resuming their kisses, pulling Jean closer by the neck of his ratty t-shirt. Jean took that as an invitation to remove it, not missing the appreciative expression on Javert’s face.

“You work out.”

“You sound surprised.”

Javert shrugged a shoulder, as if to say ‘you seem too lazy’ and so, to retaliate, Jean lifted him, causing a surprised “shit”, and then a hasty “put me down.”

“I thought you liked being in the air,” Jean teased, keeping the struggling Javert up for a moment longer. Only once landed did Javert remove the pressure behind his fingers, no longer grappling for purchase on Jean’s neck. 

“Do you know how many safety precautions there are to fly?” Javert asked, absently, taking Jean forcibly by the hand and leading him through the small apartment, only pausing to point to the bathroom.

“A lot?” Jean guessed, liking the feel of Javert’s pulse under his thumb.

“A lot.”

-Hour Seven-

The baby finally asleep, Javert’s subconscious led him back to his post, ever the diligent worker. It took less than three seconds to remember why he had worked so hard the last hour. 

Immediately after he had sat in his designated chair, he had watched Jean yawn, distracted by whatever Cosette was watching on the screen, not noticing Javert watching. Jean stretched his arms above his head, 

-1989.5-

the thin sheets pulling towards him with the movement. Javert reclaimed the covers with an unsympathetic “tired?”, the lights of the city at night illuminating them in a soft orange.

“Didn’t sleep on the plane,” Jean replied, one hand coming back down to stroke Javert’s hair from his face, tucking it behind his ear.

“I did offer you a sleeping pill,” Javert said, semi-adopting his work voice.

“If I had taken it, you wouldn’t have given me your address.”

“You say that like a criminal. Did you  _ plan _ on using me as a hotel, Jean?”

“That would be giving me too much credit,” Jean laughed. He propped himself up on one elbow, leaning over Javert, giving him a better vantage to kiss him from.

The sound of the whine and boom of a firework had both turning to the window. On the eleventh floor of the apartment, the pair were almost on level with the lights, Jean given a halo by the bright red glow.

“Pretty,” Jean mumbled, laying back down to give Javert a better view.

Javert snorted. “I find them pointless.” 

“What, fireworks?”

Javert nodded. “It’s as if whoever is setting them off is attempting to set fire to the sky.” Javert’s jaw tightened, knowing he was being watched. “What?”

“No, I just… did not take you to be a poet.”

Javert hit Jean’s shoulder, the movement lazy, not affording the stupidity a response. “What?” he asked again, once it became obvious that Jean was staring again. 

“When do you next fly?”

“Tomorrow. Two short-hauls, so I’ll be back in the evening.”

Jean contemplated something. “Would you… like to get dinner when you get back? You could show me the city, the best places to go…”

“A date?”

“...If you’d like it to be one…”

Javert turned from his side, watching the ceiling. Here was a perfectly decent man, asking him on a date, and Javert could not feel anything but fear. Already his thoughts went to causing heartbreak and guilty break-ups. He swallowed. “I…” he faltered. “I feel the same about romance as I do about sex.” Better to pull the plaster off quick. “I would rather not be in a relationship if you required that from me.” Javert’s eyes flicked to Jean.

Jean seemed… confused. Not put-off, but… he did not understand.  _ Yet _ , Javert thought, something hopeful in him. “A date,” Javert said eventually, taking pity on Jean. Javert could hardly explain the feelings to himself, let alone to this stranger. Perhaps this would be the time Javert would learn how to fall in love. “You’d better have enough money to buy a change of clothes.”

“For you? I think I can scrape enough together.”

Javert took a moment to process this. Then, once he had, his body had the gall to blush, as if it had been set on fire. Jean watched, laughing, until he yawned again, and Javert had a good enough reason to jam his eyes shut and pretend to want to sleep. “Goodnight, Jean.”

“Goodnight, Javert. ...Happy New Year.”

Javert had, in all honesty, forgotten about the new year; had never really celebrated it as a solitary man. But, he thought, he was glad to be enjoying the first day of the new year with Jean.

Jean rolled closer once Javert was nearly asleep. “If I ask you something, will you promise not to kick me out?”

“I don’t make a habit of making empty promises.”

A pause. “Are you part of the mile high club?”

-Hour Seven Cont.-

“Do you still live in Hong Kong, Javert?” Cosette had come to sit with him, patting one of her dogs as she talked.

“Yes.”

“Do you live near where we live?”

“Why?”

“Just asking.”

“I don’t live far.”

Cosette hmm-ed. “So you live near San Po Kong.”

“...Yes.”

“Do you live where you lived when you were a baby?”

“Where I lived as an infant, or when I was younger?”

“Yes.”

Javert glanced down at the girl, who sat, unaware of the annoyance she was causing. “I live in the same apartment I lived in when I was younger, but not where I was born.”

“Kowloon bay.”

If Javert didn’t feel concerned by her wanting the knowledge, he might have been proud. Cosette answered these fears by standing, nodding, and going back to sit with her father. “Kowloon Bay,” he heard her say, and, as if by magic, a pit formed within Javert that crossed the borders of time.

-1989.6-

It had taken Javert almost six months to weedle a surname from Jean. At first, it had been an innocent question, a curiosity, and then it had turned into a game, as if he were trying to uncover Jean’s secret identity. But if Jean kept his secrets close, he kept his wallet closer, and with no other way to identify him, Javert had been left in the dark.

Until one night, on their smoggy balcony with a couple of beers, Javert had realised, out loud, that he could check the flight records for the seat Jean had been on at New Year’s. Javert loved the rush of a win; he took a victory swig of his beer before he turned to Jean, who looked… defeated. Not like a man who has been defeated in a game, but like a man whose safety has been compromised. 

“Madeleine,” Jean said into his beer bottle, “I’ll save you the trouble of looking. Jean Madeleine.”

“As in…”

“As in, the Jean Madeleine whose patented computer chip has revolutionised the tech market, but who has never been seen in public.”

Javert put his bottle down, as if scared to break something. “I thought you didn’t have money.”

“I said I left with what was in my pockets,” Jean said, not looking at Javert, “You assumed that that wasn’t a lot.”

“I thought you were homeless.”

“I asked if you knew any good hotels,” Jean said, as if that meant something. “I’m sorry if that said homelessness to you.”

“You said it sarcastically! I think I’m in the fucking right to have read the— the persona you were feeding me!”

“Because I was trying to hide!”

“From dastardly air stewards?”

“From everyone! How was I supposed to know if you’d rat me out the moment you learnt who I was?”

“‘Rat you out’? Is that… is that what you think of me? Six months together and you think I’m going to throw you to the press?”

“It wasn’t easy.”

“What wasn’t?”

“Hiding it from you.”

“Oh, I’ll bet.” Javert picked the bottle back up, gulping the liquid down. “It must have been such an ordeal.”

“‘Hi, honey, I’m home, by the way, remember when I didn’t tell you who I was? I’m actually a multi-millionaire in hiding’.”

“That would have served the function, yes.”

“Javert, please, look, so I don’t need to hide it from you anymore. If it’s about the money, I’ve been paying our bills, and, I was going to tell you this later but-”

“You’ve been what?” Javert’s voice frozen.

“Listen, Javert, I’ve been looking around, and-”

“No, no, no, you’ve been doing what? Paying the bills?”

“I have the money to spare, Javert, I couldn’t just let you pay for the both of us—”

“I have money.”

“...This isn’t about pride. I can afford it, so I paid for it.”

“Pride?” Javert’s hand gripped the bottle so hard it was a surprise the glass didn’t shatter. “I can afford it. I would not have offered to help you if I couldn’t  _ afford  _ it.”

“But now you don’t have to—”

“This is my house.” Javert stood, the thick summer air clinging to his movement. “I pay my bills.”

“Javert…”

“I’m going to bed.” Javert finished the rest of his beer and left the bottle on the table. “Tidy up once you’re finished,” he said, going back inside.

“Javert.” The man paused, moments from closing the balcony door. “I found an apartment. A nice one, away from the smog, away from the planes. Big enough for both of us.”

The door clicked shut.

-1995-

Javert barely watched television, but one of his stewards had rung, telling him to switch on to the news, their airline in the headlines. Javert had been getting dressed for a flight, but he switched the box on while he pinned and sprayed his hair. 

“-caught smuggling-” a flash of a familiar face “-with a criminal record-”

-Hour Eight-

Cosette had finally fallen asleep, with only an hour of flight left to go.

Valjean took this opportunity to stretch his legs, and to use the toilet. When he ducked back through the curtain, he found Javert, watching him, unabashed to be staring. Valjean put his head down and went back to his seat.

A minute of restlessness later, he stood back up and went to sit next to Javert.

“Wouldn’t have thought they’d let you on the planes again,” Javert began. “What with using us to smuggle illegal good and all.”

“I was just the one who had to collect the items at customs. I was caught. I went to jail. I did my time.” When Javert did not turn towards him, Valjean sighed. “The tickets were bought under an alias. Fauchelevent.”

“The man you pulled from the car crash,” Javert remembered. “You took his name?”

“He gave it to me. He er,” Jean put a hand to his neck, awkward. “Needed a way into Europe.”

Javert frowned, then his eyes widened. “You  _ married  _ him?”

“Only for convenience. Once he had his rights, we were ‘amicably divorced’, but I still had a passport with this name.”

Javert rolled his eyes. “I’m sure your ex-husband is profiting mightily from the scandal.”

“He died.” 

Javert closed his eyes, feeling like shit. 

“Complications from the crash… and, well, he was getting old. He lived to be eighty.”

“What did she think of your marriage of convenience?” Javert asked, inclining his head towards Cosette.

“We never told her. She thinks he was her uncle. We worked together, but slept separately, more like siblings than partners.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Valjean working up the courage to continue. “Are you… going to report us?”

Javert did not flinch. He continued watching Cosette sleep. He should do. He should want to. After the way Valjean had simply disappeared after that night on the balcony, never in contact again… He should love the feeling of closure, after all these years.

He made a short shake of the head. 

“Truly?” Valjean asked, sounding choked, “You mean that?”

Javert nodded. 

Valjean, overwhelmed by the retraction of fear, took one of Javert’s hands between his own and squeezed. “Thank you, Javert.” Valjean’s hands were warm and dry, calloused like he remembered them being. He nodded again, for a want of anything better to say.

-Landing-

“Seatbelts, seatbelts…”

Javert came to Cosette and Valjean, both anticipating him and showing their tightened belts.

“Thank you,” he said, moving away.

“Are you and Papa friends again?”

Javert stopped. “‘Again’?”

“Only friends who are angry at eachother act the way that you acted. Strangers aren’t nearly as scary.”

Javert considered the child for a good second. “We have cleared a misunderstanding.” He did not want to even hope that Valjean would want to be  _ friends _ . He did not look at Valjean.

“Let Javert work, darling,” Valjean said, and Javert left, helping the others in the main bus.

Javert did not have the opportunity to talk to the pair again, shuttling people out of the airplane, reminding them to take their belongings, helping shorter people take luggage out of the overhead lockers.

He cleaned the first class cabin last.

Stuck to the screen of Cosette’s seat was a bright pink post-it. ‘Thank you very much for taking care of us, Javert,’ the note read in a child’s neat scrawl, ‘It was nice to meet you and I hope we get to meet again.’ At the bottom of the page was three stick figures; a man and child holding hands, then another man waving, distinguishable by his scarf.

Javert unstuck it, glanced around to check he wasn’t being watched, and pocketed the note.

-2016-

Javert’s flat was in need of redecoration, he thought. It was old, creaky, it had more leaks than he’d like to think about. His bed creaked when he lay down on it, the mattress lumpy. The paint job had been unstylish in the 80s. He was sure if someone saw it now, they’d think him hipster or some like.

He lay down in his loungers and t-shirt, atop the sheets, and could not help but think of Valjean. Were the stains in the ceiling there when Valjean had shared this bed? Javert glanced at the sideboard, where he’d left the post-it. He picked it up, re-reading the note. Then, curious, he looked at the back of the note.

Disappointment. That was an interesting feeling to note. What had he expected? That Valjean would leave a number, or an address… Why, to make up with Javert? So that they could get back together?

He flicked the paper off the side of the bed. Frustration? He had had two and a half decades to bury these feelings. ...But maybe burying hadn’t been enough.

A knock on the door. He rolled his eyes. At this hour, Jehovah’s witnesses. There had been a few roaming around his flat this last month, so he’d stopped answering. He never had visitors bar the occasional delivery man anyway. 

He fell asleep on the sheets, more tired by the flight than he’d ever been.

-2016-

He found the postcard the next morning when he passed from bedroom to kitchen. Spam, he thought, not bothering to glance at it as he made coffee, prepared breakfast. He enjoyed reading spam mail, wondering what rouse would be concocted next. He took a sip of coffee as he turned from the picture on the front, a photo of the old Kai Tak airport badly photoshopped on one half to fade into the new Hong Kong airport on the right. ‘WELCOME TO HK’, read neon writing.

The address on the back wasn’t Javert’s. There was no stamp. 

‘-From C & VJ.’


End file.
